Shadowing Technique to learn Latin (or any language!) — your feedback is requested! 😃 (Patreon)

Steps to Alexander Anguelles' Shadowing Technique to Learning Languages

Based on these videos by Alexander Aguelles (I recommend watching these videos *after* seeing my video above):

• In this video, Alexander looks like a crazy person, shouting in Chinese while walking about. He explains what he's doing in the subsequent videos

https://youtu.be/VdheWK7u11w  

• Shadowing Q & A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHYDBYHi2bc

• Shadowing Explained Step by Step

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=130bOvRpt24

STEPS TO SHADOWING TECHNIQUE

These steps assume you have access to the target language text in a line-for-line translation in a language you know, such as the Assimil books — for the sake of simpilicity, I will call this familiar language "English," but it could be any language you are comfortable with; for Latin, I can recommend my recordings of the Traupman Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency dialogues on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYgC_33Z9Bg&list=PLU1WuLg45SiwIqVslmhJrSc9mUGQ9OVn4

Step 1: Blind Shadowing

- listen to the audio of all of the lessons in the target language, before even looking at the text.

- while listening, repeat every word and sound you hear as precisely as you can (it sounds crazy, but it works!); you'll be bad at this at first, but you will rapidly improve!

- do this for the whole book.

Step 2: Look at the English text of every lesson while shadowing the audio of the whole book.

- don't look at the target language; the goal here is merely to figure out the global meaning of every dialogue to now understand what you've been babbling for the past several hours.

Step 3: Thumb-Reading 1

- using your thumbs on the side-by-side translation, listen to the whole book, while glancing over at the target language

Step 4: Thumb-Reading 2

- using your thumbs on the side-by-side translation, listen to the whole book, keeping your eyes on the target language, and merely glancing at the English any time you don't fully understand a thing.

Step 5: Shadow Target Language Exclusively

- repeat every sound you hear in the text; don't look at the English.

Step 6: Begin to try to think in the target language

- start with just 30 seconds at a time each day; increase as desired.

Step 7: Comparative Textual Analysis

- without audio, read the target language using the English to understand the meaning of every word.

Step 8: Transcribe entire target language text by hand.

- say aloud the longest phrase you can keep in short term memory, then transcribe verbatim.

Step 9: Transcribe entire target language text by tying.

- say aloud the longest phrase you can keep in short term memory, then transcribe verbatim.

- double-spaced; print the text you typed

- read this text of yours silently; you'll probably know every word in the whole book and understand nearly everything, but in case you don't, the double-spacing is to give you the chance to insert your notes and English translations as necessary

Step 10: Listen to the audiobook for the text again, without shadowing, while you do other things around the house, or exercise, driving, etc.

Conclusion, you will have invited the language to live and grow in your mind! 🌱 🌺